Obama's Challenges at the United Nations

Global crises and the demands of geo-political summitry this week
force President Obama to take a break from what the White House hoped
would be a relentless focus on the domestic economy. Eleven days after
he pledged to take his jobs message "to every corner of this country,"
the president left for New York on Monday afternoon for two days of
diplomatic wrangling over the Israeli-Palestinian situation, the next
step in Libya, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran's nuclear program,
and the growing banking crisis in Europe.

All resist easy
solutions, most present daunting challenges to the United States, and
some have potentially ominous repercussions for the American economy.
Without question, this trip to the annual opening of the United Nations
General Assembly comes at an inconvenient time for a president trying to
persuade a skeptical nation that he has the answer to their economic
woes.

The public highlight of the trip will be Obama's speech to
the General Assembly on Wednesday. But the real diplomatic work is
likely to come out of public view, in a series of talks with other world
leaders. The White House has scheduled 10 individual sessions in
addition to the larger meetings. On Tuesday, he will meet with U.N.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Brazilian
President Dilma Rousseff, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to talk with new Japanese Prime
Minister Noda Yoshihiko, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French
President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Salva Kiir, the new president of South
Sudan.

A meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
has been scheduled but the White House has not said when it will take
place. Other sessions also may be added.

The most ticklish
diplomatic challenge awaiting the president in New York is the
Palestinian push to have the world body recognize it as an independent
state. Currently, the Palestinians are considered an "entity" in the
U.N. Intense efforts to persuade the Palestinians to pursue a different
course so far have failed. President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday told Ban
Ki-moon that he will present his application to the Security Council on
Friday.

The United States has made clear that it will veto the
application, forcing Abbas to consider going to the General Assembly to
request an upgrade from "entity" to "non-member state." That would
likely pass, given the overwhelming support for the Palestinians among
the 193-member body. But it would also risk a cut-off of aid from the
United States and other allied countries.

Talking to reporters
aboard his plane enroute to New York, Abbas acknowledged the fuss he has
kicked up and the threat to that aid. "We decided to take this step and
all hell has broken out against us," he said, according to Reuters. But
he said he will not be discouraged. "From now until I give the speech,
we have only one choice: going to the Security Council. Afterwards, we
will sit and decide," he said.

The Obama administration has told
the Palestinians, "You're not going to accomplish the objective of
statehood through the U.N. General Assembly or the U.N. system at all,"
said Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser. "For there to be a
Palestinian state that realizes the aspirations of the Palestinian
people, they need to work this out with Israel."

The dispute also
has domestic political ramifications for Obama. Last week's stunning
repudiation of the Democrats in a New York congressional district held
by the party for eight decades was blamed in large part on Jewish unease
about the president's position on Israel. Rhodes promised the president
while in New York will affirm again "the unbreakable bond between the
United States and Israel."

The White House is determined not to
let the Palestinian issue dominate the president's time in New York,
though. While his speech on Wednesday will acknowledge his "frustration
with the lack of progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace," he has what
Rhodes called "a broad agenda" that includes discussions with allies
about what needs to happen next in Libya, consolidation of Arab spring
democratization of the Middle East, and Rhodes said the president will
also press the Security Council for "more robust action" against Syria.

Mark
Quarterman, who spent 12 years working for the U.N. before joining the
Center for Strategic and International Studies, describes the opening of
the General Assembly as "really the annual convention of heads of state
and governments." He said that the real business is conducted less in
the official speeches and more "at the margins," in the small group
meetings and hallway discussions. And this year, much of that talk will
be about the continuing European economic weakness and the threat it
poses to American economic recovery.

"That will be the
conversation in the hallways," said Heather A. Conley, who was deputy
secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in President George
W. Bush's first term. "I believe that we are watching what has been
over an 18-month crisis starting to morph into a slow-motion collapse.
And this is the story for Europe. This is the story for the global
economy. And watching that in relationship to how events unfold in New
York will be very, very interesting."

What is happening in Europe
and developments in the Middle East could overshadow the president's
speech. "There are much more important, almost tectonic, issues going on
in the world economy," Quarterman said. "This is a chance for President
Obama to highlight the positive occurrences as regards Libya, and maybe
push a little bit on Syria and a few other issues."